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CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT MONTESQUIEU The Spirit ofthe Laws CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT Series editors RAYMOND GEUSS Lecturer in Philosophy, University ofCambridge QUENTIN SKINNER Regius Professor ofModern History in the University ofCambridge Cambridge Texts in the History ofPolitical Thought is now firmly established as the major student textbook series in political theory. It aims to make available to students all the most important texts in the history of western political thought, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth century. All the familiar classic texts will be included, but the series seeks at the same time to enlarge the conventional canon by incorporating an extensive range of less well-known works, many of them never before available in a modern English edition. Wherever possible, texts are published in complete and unabridged form, and translations are specially commissioned for the series. Each volume contains a critical introduction together with chronologies, biographical sketches, a guide to further reading and any necessary glossaries and textual apparatus. When completed the series will aim to offer an outline of the entire evolution of western political thought. For a list oftitles published in the series, please see end ofbooIe. Prolem sine matre creatum OVID,Mdamrnphosts 2.553 Contents Introduction Principal events in Montesquieu s lift Bibliographical note Translators' preface List ofabbreviations Authors.foreword Preface Figure I Part 1 xi xxix xxxi xxxiv xxxix xli xliii xlvi Boo K I On laws in general 3 Boo K 2 On laws deriving directly from the nature of the government 10 Boo K 3 On the principles of the three governments 2 I Boo K 4 That the laws of education should be relative to the principles of the government 3 I Boo K 5 That the laws given by the legislator should be relative to the principle of the government 42 Boo K 6 Consequences of the principles of the various governments in relation to the simplicity of civil and criminal laws, the form of judgments, and the establishment of penalties 72 Boo K 7 Consequences of the different principles of the three governments in relation to sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition ofwomen 96 vii Contents Boo K 8 On the corruption of the principles of the three governments 112 Part 2 Boo K9 On the laws in their relation with defensive force 131 BOOK 10 On laws in their relation with offensive force 138 Boo K I I On the laws that form political liberty in its relation with the constitution 154 Boo K 12 On the laws that form political liberty in relation to the citizen 187 Boo K 13 On the relations that the levy of taxes and the size ofpublic revenues have with liberty 213 Part3 BOOK I4 On the laws in their relation to the nature of the climate 23 1 BOOK IS How the laws of civil slavery are related with the nature of the climate 246 BOOK 16 How the laws of domestic slavery are related to the nature of the climate 264 BOOK 17 How the laws ofpolitical servitude are related to the nature of the climate 278 BOOK 18 On the laws in their relation with the nature of the terrain 285 BOOK 19 On the laws in their relation with the principles forming the general spirit, the mores, and the manners of a nation 308 Part4 BOOK 20 On the laws in their relation to commerce, considered in its nature and its distinctions 337 BOOK21 On laws in their relation to commerce, considered in the revolutions it has had in the world 354 BOOK22 On laws in their relation to the use of money 398 BOOK 23 On laws in their relation to the number of inhabitants 427 viii Contents Part 5 Boo K 24 On the laws in their relation to the religion established in each country, examined in respect to its practices and within itself 459 Boo K25 On the laws in their relation with the establishment of the religion of each country, and of its external police 479 Boo K 26 On the laws in the relation they should have with the order of things upon which they are to enact 494 Part 6 BOOK 27 ONLY CHAPTER. On the origin and revolutions of the Roman laws on inheritance 521 Boo K 28 On the origin and revolutions of the civil laws among the French 532 BOOK 29 On the way to compose the laws 602 Boo K 30 The theory of the feudal laws among the Franks in their relation with the establishment of the monarchy 619 BOOK 31 The theory of the feudal laws among the Franks in their relation to the revolutions of their monarchy 669 Bibliography 723 Index ofnames and places 735 Index ofworks cited 747 ix Introduction In a letter written in 1748 when The Spirit of the Laws was first published Montesquieu wrote, "I can say that I have worked on it my whole life: I was given some law books when I left my college; I sought their spirit, I worked, but I did nothing worthwhile. I discovered my principles twenty years ago: they are quite simple; anyone else working as hard as I did would have done better. But I swear that this book nearly killed me; I am going to rest now; I shall work no more" (Oeuvres de Montesquieu, ed. Andre Masson (3 vols., Paris, 1950-1954), vol. 3, p. 1200). The publication of The Spirit of the Laws did mark the end of Montesquieu's work. He was, like La Bruyere and Montaigne before him, a man who put all he knew into his one book. Although it was published as Diderot, d'Alembert, and Rousseau were imagining the Enlightenment in the coffee houses and salons of Paris, and although the first volume of the Encyclopedia and Rousseau's Discourse on theArts and Sciences appeared just three years later, these facts suggest the wrong context. Rather, The Spirit ofthe Laws belongs to the first halfof the eighteenth century - to a period of relative quiet when one could think ofreform, muddling through, or marking time. Montesquieu, for example, wrote ofCromwell, "It was a fine spectacle in the last century to see the impotent attempts of the English to establish democracy among themselves. As those who took part in public affairs had no virtue at all, as their ambition was excited by the success of the most audacious one and the spirit of one faction was repressed only by the spirit of another, the government was constantly changing; the people, stunned, sought democracy and found it nowhere. Finally, after much xi Introduction motion and many shocks and jolts, they had to come to rest on the very government that had been proscribed" (3.3). Here Montesquieu lectured the English, as Burke was later to lecture the French, for forgetting the need to preserve the forms as they changed toward a popular government. In retrospect we have identified three different ways oflife in France before the revolution: that of the orders of the feudal monarchy, that of the absolute king and his servarrts, the bureaucrats, and their equal subjects, and that of those comers of society which supported the new thought and freedom. But in Montesquieu's time the distinction was not so clear. An examination of Montesquieu's life provides a view of the eighteenth century as it impinged upon Montesquieu; he was a feudal proprietor, wine merchant, parliamentarian, academician, man of letters. Although he took his place briefly in the Parliament of Bordeaux and toyed with the notion of serving the king in foreign relations, he principally worked to maintain his family and took part in the acade~ies and other less formal gatherings of like-minded men and women. Here we shall first consider Montesquieu's life as a noble landowner, then as an eighteenth-century man ofletters, and finally as the author of The SpinOt ofthe Laws. Then we shall proceed to the book itself and its reception. The noble landowner Montesquieu's family first appears among theprovincial nobility of Bordeaux, when Jean de Secondat, whose wife was related to the Plantagenets, was ennobled in 1562. The tide was raised to a barony in 1606 by Henry IV. Two generations later, Montesquieu's grandfather, whose wife was the daughter of the First President of the parliament, became President aMortier in the Parliament ofBordeaux. (The office of president was bought, sold, and inherited; there were, in the parliament, a number of Presidents aMortier who served on various panels as judges and administrators and one First President.) This family offered its members the choice of either the parliamentary nobility of the robe or the military nobility of the sword; at the same time it saw to it that the family lands and goods all stayed within the family, that the children beyond those needed to continue the family joined religious orders, and that those who took up either robe or sword married well. This was a noble family, carefully built and maintained, xii lntroduaion depending on no single notion of honor or prosperity. Montesquieu was to write to his son, "You are ofthe robe or the sword. It is up to you to choose when you have to answer as to your estate" (Oeuvres, vol. 2, Pensees 5(69». Montesquieu's uncle, his father's oldest brother, became Baron de Montesquieu and President it Mortier, but he had no surviving children. Montesquieu's father, a younger son, took up arms as a profession, finally fighting the Turks in Hungary, where "he must have been somewhat well regarded," said Montesquieu, "because, when I was in Vienna, I still found former officers who remembered having seen him" (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 1564). When Montesquieu's father returned to Bordeaux, he married a rich noblewoman, who inherited the barony ofLa Brede, as well as many debts that he spent much ofthe rest of his life retiring. His three other brothers became ecclesiastics, and his three sisters, nuns. Our Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, stood to inherit both from his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu and President it Mortier, and his father, the Baron de La Brede, becoming finally Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu and President it Mortier of the Parlement of Bordeaux. Eventually Montesquieu sold the presidence he had inherited from his uncle, but he remained the careful steward of the family lands. Montesquieu was born in 1689 at La Brede. His early life moved smoothly toward preparing him for his position both as noble land- owner and as parliamentary magistrate. His first experiences were of everyday rural life, and he continued to feel at home on his estates. It is said that, like Montaigne, he was given a beggar as godfather and spent his earliest years being cared for in the mill near La Brede. Much later in his life, he was taken for a worker in his own vineyards by visitors who addressed him as a peasant and asked him the way to Montesquieu's chateau. At age eleven Montesquieu was sent to the College de Juilly near Paris, an excellent and aristocratic institution, to begin the education that was to prepare him for the presidence. There he was given a thorough grounding in history, both ancient and modern. That educa- tion seems to have encouraged reading and comparing a wide variety of sources and keeping notebooks of reflections and of observations on a variety of topics, habits which Montesquieu maintained from then on. There is no record of Montesquieu's time at the College, and Montesquieu, typically, remarks not upon the academic content of his xiii Introduction education, but upon the moral education embedded in the practices of everyday life of a school which forced a young man "to betray his comrades every day in a hundred petty ways" and ruined "the hearts of all those within" (Oeuvres, vol. 2, Pensees 218 (1758». After graduating, Montesquieu was sent to study law at the University of Bordeaux, taking a licentiate after three years. He then returned to Paris, continuing his study of law in the courts of Paris, keeping notes as always. Little is known about this period of his life (1708-13), but he maintained an acquaintance with Pere Desmolets and Nicholas Freret, both ofwhom were probably known to him from College (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 72 9). He spoke extensively about China with a Chinese visitor, writing a summary in his notebooks that points toward both the Persian Letters and The Spirit ofthe Laws (Oeuvres, vol. 2, pp. 924-63). In 17 13, just after his father's death, Montesquieu returned to Bordeaux to take up his inheritance. He bought himself a place in the parliament as a counsellor and married a woman who brought considerable lands and wealth with her. Little is known of her except that she was a practicing Protestant and the trusted steward of his lands during his absences. In 1716 his uncle died, leaving Montesquieu the family estates and the presidence a mortier. In three years Montesquieu, now twenty-seven years old, had become a provincial nobleman of some consequence. These were very quiet years in the Parlement of Bordeaux; the ordinary judicial and administrative activities were primary. There were few moves made to revive and exercise the right ofremonstrance, that is, the right to judge the legality ofnew laws, and no claim to be in any way the representatives of the nation, unlike some of the parlia- ments in the later period closer to the revolution. Montesquieu began in the court at its lowest rank, as a counsellor in the criminal court, and moved up as far as the senior president in that court. He served as the commissioner of prisons, was one of the counsellors charged with overseeing the assignment of those condemned to the galleys, and could not have avoided participating in interrogations that relied upon torture. His activities were always as a member of a panel of judges. The chief issues in the parliament in those years had to do with the complicated rules of precedence, both as they applied to relations between counsellors and presidents, and in respect to the disregard of those same rules by the governor of the region, the Marechal Berwick, who was to become a life-long friend of Montesquieu's. Mon- xiv Introduaion tesquieu's attendance in the sessions, never among the best, became so infrequent after the publication of the Persian Letters in 1721 that there appear even to have been murmurs of discontent in the parliament. When Montesquieu sold the life interest in his presidence in 1728, his friend the President Barbot tried to persuade him to remain by arguing that, although the work was not pleasant, it was routine and easy, that it "scarcely distracts you from your other occupations or amusements" (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 819). Montesquieu answered that not the questions but the proceedings were incomprehensible to him and that it was tiresome "to see fools in possession of the very talent that fled me, so to speak" (Oeuvres, vol. 2, Pensees 213(4)). There is no suggestion on either man's part that the parliament could be anything more than a law court and a job. As a great landowner, Montesquieu took care to maintain his customary rights and to increase his land-holding. He was constantly involved in complicated legal actions and in buying land near his own. He,advised his daughter to invest her money in land and that legal actions were a part ofbeing a great lady with much land (Oeuvres, vol. 3, pp. 1271, 1344). But Montesquieu was a modern farmer concerned with the market for his goods as well as a nobleman collecting his feudal goods. He was concerned with his vines, his wine, and the course of international trade in wine. In 1727 he found himself in conflict with the Intendant, writing a memorandum arguing that he knew best what to do with his land and wine, and objecting to the controls on production and export. The Intendant responded in a note to his superiorwith scorn for the excessive cleverness of the enlightened landowner (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 264). Here the nobleman's presumption of independence, even while defending economic freedoms, runs against the planning, and even the egalitarianism, of the king's servant. When the market for his wine collapsed, largely because wars made it impossible to ship it to England, he stayed in La Brede and did not spend his customary time in Paris. Thus, he wrote in 1742, "But I am afraid that if ,the war continues I shall be forced to go and plant cabbages at La Brede. In Guyenne, our commerce will soon be on its last legs; our wine will be left on our hands, and you know that it is our entire wealth" (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 1017). In sum, in a letter to a woman friend in Paris from La Brede, he wrote, "I hear people talk ofnothing but grapevines, hard times, and lawsuits, and fortunately I am fool xv Introduction enough to enjoy all that, that is, to be interested in it" (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 1383). He did not conduct his life as a man ofletters at the expense of his life as a landowner. Montesquieu followed the family tradition in his arrangements for his children and estates. He educated his son to take over the presidence when it returned to his family upon the death of the man to whom he had sold his life-interest. Althoug:h his son briefly became a counsellor, he wanted to be a naturalist and refused to take up the presidence, which Montesquieu subsequently sold altogether. When it became clear to Montesquieu that his son was not likely to have any children, he married his daughter Denise to a distant cousin, Godefroy de Secondat, and arranged for the bulk of the estate to go to her children so that it would stay in the family. The man of letters In 17 15, soon after returning to Bordeaux to take up the life of a provincial nobleman, Montesquieu was elected to the Academy of Bordeaux and remained active in it for ihe rest ofhis life, becoming its mainstay and its connection to Paris. The provincial academies offered a protected institutional environment in which the urban, educated nobles, the clergy, and the members of the third estate met to conduct altogether secular discussions of scientific, moral, and literary ques- tions. Papers were presented and discussed by the members of the Academy. Montesquieu reported primarily on scientific observations, but his discontent with this science is illustrated by his remarks that "these systems" are "no sooner set up than they are overthrown" (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 52). He also offered a number of papers on social practices in other countries and times, and on duties and natural law, contrasting the performance ofduties in accordance with natural law to a totally disordered pursuit of the desire of the moment. In one of the sections that remains from the Traite des devoirs, which Montesquieu never finished for publication, he again follows the traditional formula, saying that the monarchy is based on the spirit of obedience (Oeuvres, vol. 3, p. 169). This last comment indicates the distance his thought was to travel before he wrote The Spin't ofthe Laws, where honor is said to be the principle of action in a monarchy. In 1721 Montesquieu published the Persian Letters anonymously and began to move increasingly in Parisian and European literary society. xvi Introduaion The Persian Letters purport to be letters by two Persian gentlemen visiting Europe from 1710 to 1720 written to their friends, to each other, to a miscellany ofother figures, and to and from the harem of the protagonist, Usbek. As they set out, Usbek praises sincerity and claims that his troubles in Persia began with his decision to speak honestly to the king. In response to a request from his friends in Persia to remind them of their conversations about virtue, he writes the story of the Troglodytes, whose inclination to help each other became an inclina- tion to follow their own desires, or self-interest, until all but one virtuous family had died. Their morality remained a consequence of inclinations, not of contemplation. The central portion of the Persian Letters offers a cool dissection of the foibles of eighteenth-century, particularly French, society and politics. In the last series of letters Usbek reacts increasingly despotically to his wives' evasion of their confinement, of their enforced virtue. As a charming and pointed commentary on French mores, the book is part of the long tradition of writing by French moralists, often particularly reminiscent of La Bruyere's Caraeteres. But in its concluding pages Montesquieu under- mines the position of the moralist, the observer, through his descrip- tion of the collapse of the harem and the violence ofUsbek's response. This conclusion gives the book its peculiar allure, makes it into a puzzle, and points away from the moralizing works of his youth. From 1721 to 1728, Montesquieu's visits to Paris became longer and more frequent. He became a part ofcourt society, devoting himself to various ladies and offering no disapproval of the morals of the court. He also became a regular in the salon ofMme. Lambert. In this salon, as in the others that Montesquieu was to attend when he returned to Paris after 1733, conversation was based not on rank and manners, but upon character, wit, and knowledge. Montesquieu seems also to have attended the Club de l'Entresol, where those invited often had particular expertise; each session was formally divided into a time for general discussion of government and international events and a time when a paper was read and considered. The chief concern behind these discussions seems to have been both the history and the reform of institutions. Boulainvilliers, whose work Montesquieu discusses extensively in Book 30 of The Spirit ofthe Laws, had attended this club, as did the Abbe de Saint Pierre and Bolingbroke. It was suppressed by the government, as was another such club that Montesquieu attended; Montesquieu saw the dissolution ofthese kinds oflittle free academies xvii Introduaion as a real loss for men of letters (Oeuvres, vol. 3, pp. 1343-1344). He seems to have taken advantage ofsocial environs in which the rules and hierarchy of the absolute monarchy were not enforced. In 1728, he arranged to become a member of the French Academy with the help of his frienlh and what must have been a politic interview with Cardinal Fleury, the First Minister ofLouis XV. He was not to become an active member of that academy until he resumed his regular visits to Paris after his European tour. Those ofMontesquieu's writings that seem to have been directed to this Parisian audience portray exotic settings, pretty women, harmless adventure, and Roman virtue. Only Rousseau took offence, saying of one such piece, "If, for example, there is any moral purpose in the Temple de Gnide it is thoroughly obfuscated and spoiled by the voluptuous details and lascivious images. What has the author done to cover it with a gloss of modesty? He has pretended that this work was the translation ofa Greek manuscript and has fashioned the story about the discovery of this manuscript in the manner most likely to persuade his readers of the truth of his tale.... But who has thought to accuse the author of a crime for this lie or to call him a deceiver for it?" (Rousseau, Reveries (New York, 1982), p. 49). The only paper of Montesquieu's found in the files of the Club de l'Entresol is the Dialogue de Sy//a et d'Eucrate, but its only imaginable connection with the interests ofthe club is the criticism Montesquieu implies by joining Sulla's noble-sounding talk ofsocial reform with his great violence and self-delusion. The author of The Spirit ofthe Laws Montesquieu set forth on an extended trip in 1728, traveling primarily to Italy and England, and he did not return to La Brede until 1731, when he beganthe work that led direcdy to writing The Spirit ofthe Laws. What precisely, if anything, Montesquieu originally expected from this tour is not clear. He might already have had the writing of The Spin"t of the Laws in mind. In 1747 he wrote in his Preface that he had discovered his principles twenty years previously, that is, before setting out. There is no direct evidence for this, but parts of Book 3 on the principles ofgovernments have been identified as among the first written in the only existing manuscript (Oeuvres, vol. 3, pp" 567-576). In addition, there is also some evidence that at the beginning xviii Introduaion of his trip Montesquieu harbored the idea of employment in foreign affairs. Montesquieu's first lengthy stop on his trip was in Vienna. There he began to keep a diary ofhis journey; he kept notes on and recorded his . impressions of the art objects, personalities, and governments he encountered, and he kept reminders ofbooks to be bought or people to see. The journal still exists for the trip to Italy and Germany, but not for the trip to England. In Vienna, he met Prince Eugene of Savoy and spent time with his circle, which was notorious for its so-called libertines and free-thinkers. In Venice, his next major stop, he sought out Antonio Conti, a churchman and one of the most effective popularizers of Newton's theories in Italy. Conti was in close contact with the circle of Prince Eugene and with the leading scientists and scholars ofItaly. Conti, in tum, gave Montesquieu letters ofintroduc- tion to the leading biologists of northern Italy and to the scholars Ludovico Muratori, a literary critic and historian of the Italian Middle Ages, and Scipione Maffei, a dramatist and classicist. In Naples Montesquieu was led to converse with Costantino Grimaldi, an aged jurist known for his defenses of Cartesian philosophy and his advocacy of the priority of civil over ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Montesquieu's interests in Italy seem to have been in modem thought rather than ancient history. Montesquieu spent two years in England. This was the England of George II, whom Montesquieu first met in Hanover; ofSwift, Defoe, Pope, and of bitter, violent public discussion and satire; where the Whig, Walpole, was the king's minister and the Tory, Bolingbroke, defended Parliament against what was called corruption, that is the influence of the king and his minister. British political freedom attracted visiting Frenchmen, whereas the disorder ofits public debate was upsetting to them. Montesquieu's interests in England seem to have been primarily political; he was acquainted with figures on all sides of the issues and with the court, and he observed Parliament in action. In England he found what was scarcely imaginable in France - a politics where the question was the proper understanding of the relation, or balance, between the representative Parliament and the .king, or the king's minister, and the reigning issue was the constitu- tional propriety of the actions of the king and Parliament. Montesquieu's famous description of English politics and of the possibility of a government based on separated and balanced powers xix Introduaion has its source in his observation of this government. His assessment in The Spirit oftheLaws ofthe way the balance operated is carefully neutral between Walpole, who controlled Parliament through his patronage, and Bolingbroke, who disapproved of the minister's invasion of the independence ofParliament: "And, as the executive power, which has all the posts at its disposal, could furnish great expectations but not fears, all those who would obtain something from it would be inclined to move to that side, and it could be attacked by all those who could expect nothing from it" (Spirit of the Laws, 19.27). For the English balance of power to work, people must be able to move between allegiance to the executive and the legislature. The posts available to the executive make that possible. The years between 1731, when he returned to France, and 1748, when The Spirit oftheLaws was finished, were occupied with the serious and extensive reading and writing required to produce first his Con- siderations on the Causes ofthe Greatness ofthe Romans and their Decline and then The Spirit ofthe Laws. The quality ofMontesquieu's scholar- ship has been a perennial question. Shackleton has traced evidence of Montesquieu's extensive reading in his Pensees, notebooks, and journals. The search for sources of his thought is handicapped, however, by an excess of evidence. He seems to have read everything. In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu cites some 300works in over 3,000 references. Muriel Dodds had located many of Montesquieu's references to the travel literature. Iris Cox has investigated the works cited in his analysis ofFrench law, concluding that Montesquieu used the best sources available to him, critically and with judgment. In our experience, if one is attentive to the point Montesquieu is trying to make, and to the possibility ofirony, his use of his sources is plausible and responsible. Montesquieu's life showed little external change during the seven years he lived after his great work was completed; he continued to travel between La Brede and Paris, to care for his family and estates, and to visit with his friends in the "republic ofletters." He wrote the Difense de l'esprit des lois, tried to keep his work from being censored by the Sorbonne and from being put on the Index, and wrote an article, "Du gout," for the Encyclopedia. In 1755, he died of a fever in Paris, confessing and taking communion, but without surrendering his papers to the priest. xx Introduaion The Spirit ofthe Laws and its reception TheSpiritoftheLaws, in spite ofMontesquieu's request to the contrary, has been read piecemeal. As in his life, Montesquieu did not seem to require any clear, overt, organizing device. The best analogy for the book is the complex mosaic and embroidery of the eighteenth century, or even rococo painting. Although there is no over-arching, organizing image, there are similarities and contrasts that send the viewer, or reader, across the painting, or through the book. The elements that have attracted the attention of those who have read and thought about Montesquieu are: the law and the spirit of the law; the division of governments into republics, monarchies, and despotisms; the notion of a free government of divided and balanced powers, and the examina- tion of the conditions of the existence of such a government; and the distinction between moderate and despotic government. Here, I can give only a briefnotion ofthe standing and ramifications ofeach notion and point out the thinkers who have responded to each. Montesquieu begins the book with the distinction between the law and the spirit ofthe law. He refuses in effect to use the great organizing principle of his predecessors, the natural law - however it was understood. As a legal principle, the spirit points away from an assessment of individual laws in terms of some universal principle and toward some particular, unifYing principle. In Book 28 Montesquieu takes up the question ofthe development ofcivil law in France from the time of the conquest by the Germanic tribes through the reign ofSaint Louis and then forward to Charles VII. This is the kind ofmaterial that seems to validate the claim of the Enlightenment that the "Middle Ages" were a period of senseless barbarism. But Montesquieu finds a kind of order in them: "One will perhaps be curious to see the monstrous usage of judicial combat reduced to principles and to find the body of so singular a jurisprudence. Men who are fundamentally reasonable place even their prejudices under rules. Nothing was more contrary to common sense than judicial combat, but once this point was granted, it was executed witha certain prudence" (28.23). Later, he speaks of the spirit of a warrior nation governed solely by the point of honor (28.27). The problem in approaching Montesquieu from this point ofview has always been in ascertaining the kind ofthing the spirit of a government, or country, is - natural, political, or even divine? Montesquieu does offer a typology of government, presenting the xxi Introduaion reader with the distinction between monarchies, despotisms, and republics. He distinguishes between the nature of a government, its source of rule, and its principle, the passions that keep it going. This permits him to make a distinction between monarchy and despotism; both are ruled by one person, but in the first the honor ofpolitical men ensures the rule of law and in the second the fear of the prince is virtually the only passion. In monarchies, there is a complicated, even confusing, hierarchy of institutions; in despotisms, there is only the prince, or his agent, and everyone else. Everyone is a slave, and in effect the slave of the prince, who in turn is the slave of his passions. Thus, Montesquieu claims that, because ofthe complex ofinstitutions that do or do not support it, the same source of rule can be exercised in such different ways that the governments must be said to be different. This notion that the kinds ofgovernments are a consequence of the way rule is exercised, which in turn is due to the entire complex of political and social groupings and institutions, marks a new way ofviewing govern- ment, which is identified by Durkheim and Raymond Aron as the beginning of sociology, although they express their distress at Mon- tesquieu's continued use of political categories. However, his first readers in France did not follow him. Dupin explicitly objected to this distinction between despotism and monarchy, claiming, as is traditional, that the form of a government determines its end and the way its people act. He was further horrified that it was not the spirit of submission but a monstrous, odious, and false notion of a monarchy based on honor that was put forward. Voltaire objected that Montesquieu's distinctions among governments, particularly the one between monarchy and despotism, were not accurately drawn. They were, he claimed, based on inaccurate infor- mation, on mere stories. His view that Montesquieu used his sources uncritically became a commonplace. In the first eight books, Montesquieu presents a moderate, or regular and law-abiding, monarchy. However, the intermediate powers that make it a monarchy resemble those of the French - a military nobility of the sword, a parliamentary nobility of the robe, and a clergy. The suggestion then, is that the moderation of the French monarchy was a consquence ofits intermediate powers. During both the religious wars of the sixteenth century and the wars of the Fronde of the seventeenth, the institutions independent of the king defended their place in the monarchy. The parliaments pushed their claim to assess xxii Introduction the appropriateness of new laws issued by the king. Claude de Seyssel in La Monarchie de France pictured a monarchy held in check by the brakes or reins on the king of religion, justice, and the police (the everyday life and habits ofa people). But Montesquieu's notion is that the political bodies create ways of acting and thinking, that in a monarchy, for example, honor channels and regularizes the actions ofa king. It does so because each noble conceives ofhimselfas a separately responsible political actor, however unfortunate his notion of honor may be. Politics in this monarchy is no longer the private business ofthe king, even of a king who must be advised and sometimes curbed. Montesquieu offers an explicit discussion of the history and revolu- tions of the French monarchy in Books 30 and 3 I, and thus concludes his text with a discussion of the actual condition of France. Here he joins the argument over what the constitution of France was or had been, if indeed it had had, or still had, a constitution. Each of these visions ofthe constitution and ofits history pointed to a different future for France, making the discussion of the status of its constitution in effect a discussion of the possibilities for change in France. Here one can see the beginning of the discussion that led directly to the French Revolution. An informed historical argument had become possible because the laws ofthe Germanic tribes and the practices of the Merovingians and Carolingians as well as the Capetians and the Valois had been published and edited during the seventeenth century. Henri de Boulainvilliers argued that the Frankish king and his nobles conquered Gaul and ruled it together as conquerors, but that this noble rule had dissolved into despotism. jean-Baptiste Dubos argued that Clovis, the Frankish king, took the place of the Roman emperor and ruled Franks and Romans alike, creating a pattern followed by the contemporary monarch. Montesquieu argued that there were distinctions among both the Franks and the Romans that were worked into the law and practice ofa new kingdom in a number ofdifferent ways. In each case, the question was the shape or constitution of the monarchy, that is of the relation between the king and the other political bodies, which could be identified by a consistent historical practice or development. The variety ofpossible constitutions and revolutions over the course of French history makes the very existence of any French constitution problematic. Later Mably claimed that there had been no consistent relation between the parts of the monarchy: in effect, that there had xxiii Introduaion been no constitution for the monarchy. He makes both the king and the nobility usurpers at different times, and in so doing he takes Mon- tesquieu's intermediate position one step further and makes an alto- gether new start more plausible. Marat, in 1785, offered a formal (loge ofMontesquieu which praises his "delicate satire," while attributing to him the outrage that was to fuel the revolution. He wrote, "he was the first among us to carry the torch of philosophy into legislation, to avenge outraged humanity, to defend its rights, and in a way, to become the legislator for the whole world." Montesquieu's own willingness to offer thoughts about legisla- tion to the public, rather than to the king, as was proper in the absolute monarchy, is taken by Marat as a model not only for statesmen but for everyone. Republics, in addition to monarchies and despotisms, are the topic for the first eight books. These governments, small, pagan, and based on slavery, seemed to offer little to eighteenth-century France, but the image of political virtue had great charm in spite of Montesquieu's characterization of the environment that a republic required. He claimed that republics were based on virtue as a principle, understood as love of country. They were maintained by a whole way of life that established equality among the citizens and left them little or nothing other than that country to love or identifY with. Put this way, the virtue of Montesquieu's republican government and the virtue celebrated by Rousseau bear a remarkable resemblance. (Rousseau was the secretary to Mme. Dupin when she and her husband, the Fermier General, wrote, published, and withdrew from publication the first critical assessment of The Spirit ofthe Laws.) In each case the passions that could be invested in an individual's well-being are directed toward that of the society as a whole; virtue is that single-minded devotion to country. In the United States, Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists took seriously Montesquieu's account of the social conditions that make republican government possible. In arguing that Americans ought not to take up manufacturing, Jefferson wrote, "It [corruption] is themark set on those, who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the hu~bandman) for their subsistence, depend for it on casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets sub- servience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition" (Jefferson, Notes on Viwnia (New xxiv Introduaion York, 1964), p. 157). The Anti-Federalists worried constantly that the proposed new U.S. Constitution did not encourage civic virtue, that it both ignored the question ofvirtue and set up conditions, such as large size, complex representation, and encouragement of commerce, that positively discouraged the development of such virtue. In addition to the paradigms of republics, monarchies, and despot- isms, Montesquieu offered the model ofa government whose end was political liberty, the English government ofhis time (11.6; 19.27). His analysis of that liberty and that government affected the way both Englishmen and Americans came to think of their political institutions and of the social and economic underpinnings of those institutions. According to Montesquieu, political liberty is the result of the separa- tion of powers. In England, the orders of the old regime, commons, lords, and king, each take up a function in the new division of rule into legislative and executive functions, with the judicial function set aside in juries. The functions of government are not entirely separated, as each branch participates to some extent in the task of the others, making the balance a result of an interaction between the branches. However, the question remains of the separation of the three orders. That is, does the king properly have some part in the choice of members of Parliament? Is the king, or his minister in Parliament, the executive, and what is the meaning of that term? Is it proper to dilute the old nobility by creating new nobles? Montesquieu is quoted approvingly by both Blackstone and Burke. Blackstone defends the separation of powers in their sources, while Burke is quite willing to find reasons for all the ways of electing members of Parliament that made it possible for the executive to have some control over them. Still, for Blackstone and Burke, as for Montesquieu, the structure of the government itself, not some appeal to first principles, is the defense of liberty. In France, during and after the French Revolution, Montesquieu's concern to balance power led to the question of whether there remained any independent political body, king, or noble, that could be used to moderate the sovereignty of the people. Burke, a careful student of Montesquieu, berated the French in his Refleaions on the Revolution in France for not attaching themselves to the institutions of their old regime, as the English had. Tocqueville replied that those institutions were no longer viable in France. Using Montesquieu's analysis of monarchy, he offered the argument that the loss of xxv Introduaion this criticism of the absolute monarchy was more influential than Montesquieu's analysis of the moderate monarchy. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville seems to have patterned his despotic democracy after Montesquieu's despotic king. But there the character of the ruler and the people became identical, leading to a new quiet, calm despot- ism. Tocqueville suspected that Madison's infinitely divided, shapeless population was inherently despotic and that the fonnal governmental institutions of the Federal government and even of the state govern- ments could not teach the use of political freedom. Rather he sought out the equivalent of Montesquieu's intennediate institution.s within the society, finding local governments, voluntary associations, and religious and familial habits and practices that shaped free democratic politics. In turning his attention to the principles ofa variety of governments and to the social, economic, and historical foundations of each, Montesquieu turned his readers away from the consideration of political right and toward an analysis of how to make particular governments work. Readers were directed to think ofthe possibilities - to become a small republic like those of the ancients, a monarchy with ranks and orders, a free government ofdivided powers, or a despotism of one or many. Each government, other than the despotisms, is a particular arrangement of equalities and inequalities. Montesquieu's thought has been most carefully attended to by thO~ who, like the members of the provincial French academies of his ti e, tried to use institutional structures to work out a balance. Monte quieu's perspi- cacity about the possibilities for such balances and th reasons they are essential for any decent politics has made and continues to make him worth reading. ANNE M. COHLER Chicago, Illinois xxviii Principal events in Montesquieu's life 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the end of French toleration for Protestantism. 1688 Glorious revolution in England. 1689 Montesquieu was born, January 18, at the Chateau of La Brede. 1700 Montesquieu went to College de Juilly. 1708 Montesquieu studied law in Bordeaux and Paris. 1713 The Papal Bull Unigenitus was promulgated condemning some propositions from P. Quesnel's Ref/exions morales, and thus supporting the Jesuits at the expense of the Jansenists. 1714 Montesquieu became a Counsellor in the Parlement of Bordeaux. 17 I 5 Montesquieu married Jeanne Lartique, a Protestant; they had three children. Louis XIV died. 17 I 6 Montesquieu became a member of the Academy of Bordeaux and, when his uncle died, inherited the barony of Montesquieu and became President aMortier in the Parlement of Bordeaux. 1721 The Persian Letters was published, anonymously. 1725 Montesquieu published Le Temple de Gnide, anonymously, and sold a life interest in his presidence. 1728 Montesquieu was elected to the French Academy and set out on trip to Germany, Italy, and England. 1729 Montesquieu traveled to England. 173 I Montesquieu returned to France. xxix Principal events in Montesquieu 's life 1734 Publication of the Considerations on the Causes ofthe Greatness of the Romans and their Decline. 1747 Montesquieu's son refused to take up the Presidence and it was sold altogether. 1748 Publication of The Spirit ofthe Laws. 1750 Publication of the Defense de ['esprit des lois. Thomas Nugent published an English translation of The Spin't of the Laws. 1751-1765 Diderot and d'Alembert edit the Encyclopedia. 175 I The Spirit ofthe Laws was put on the Index. Rousseau published the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. 1754 Montesquieu wrote the Essay on Taste, which appeared in the Encyclopedia. Rousseau published the Discourse on the Origins ofInequality. 1755 Montesquieu died in Paris of a fever. 1757 A new, revised edition of The Spirit of the Laws was published under the direction of Montesquieu's son from notes left by Montesquieu at his death. 1771 Maupeou dissolved the parlements and substituted another system of courts, whose members were to be appointed. The parlements were reestablished when Louis .::P'I became king in 1774. This is often :used as a date to mark ie beginning of the pre-revolutionary thrust in French history. J xxx Bibliographical note For a general introduction to eighteenth-century France, Alfred Cobban, A History ofModern France, vol. 1 and The Old Regime and the French Revolution, ed. Keith Michael Baker, vol. 7 ofReadings in Western Civilization (Chicago, 1987) serve admirably. William Doyle, The Par/ement ofBordeaux and the End ofthe Old Regime (New York, 1974) and Daniel Roche, Le Siecle des lumieres en Pruvince (Paris, 1978) provide a picture ofprovincial life before the revolution. The collected essays in ThePolitical Culture ofthe OldRegime, ed. Keith Michael Baker (Oxford, 1987)give an idea of contemporary historians' assessment of this period. The references are extremely useful. The standard reference for Montesquieu's biography is Robert Shackleton, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1961).Jean Starobinski's little book Montesquieu (Paris, 1979) collects the autobiographical information and has wonderful pictures. Judith N. Shklar, Montesquieu (Oxford, 1987) presents yet another version of Montesquieu's personality and work. Jean Dalat,Montesquieu magistrat, Archives des leures modernes, ns. 132,139 and Jean Dalat,Montesquieu, chefdefamille,Archives des leures modernes, n. 217, give a closer view of Montesquieu's actual activities than was previously available. Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton, 1980), sees Montesquieu in the light ofearlier French constitutionalist thought. Franklin Ford, Robe and Sword (New York, 1965) identifies Montesquieu with the parliamentaryrevolt, and A. Lloyd Moote, The Revolt of the Judges, the Parlement ofParis and the Fronde, 1643-1652 (Princeton, 1971) gives a good notion of the way the parliamentarians thought. E. Carcassone, Montesquieu et Ie probleme de la constitution xxxi Bibliographical note franfaise au XV/IIe siede (Paris, 1927) places Montesquieu within eighteenth-century constitutionalism. H. Roddier, "De la composition deL 'Esprit des Lois: Montesquieu et les Oratorien de L'Academie de ]uilly," Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France, 52 (1952) connects Montesquieu's use of historical sources to the way he was taught. The essays in the Oeuvres compleres de Mon- tesquieu (Paris, 1950-1954) are also useful. There are three books which take particular topics and try and assess Montesquieu's use of his sources: Iris Cox, Montesquieu and the History of French Laws (Oxford, 1983); Muriel Dodds, Les Recits de voyages: sources deL 'Esprit des lois de Montesquieu (Paris, 1929); and Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, Tacite etMontesquieu (Oxford, 1985). Franl<ois Furet and Mona Ouzuf, "Two Historical Legitimations of Eighteenth-Century French Society: Mably and Boulainvilliers," in Franl<ois Furet, In the Workshop ofHistory (Chicago, 1985) helps place the final historical chapters in context. For accounts of Montesquieu and English politics see:]. Dedieu, Montesquieu et la tradition anglaise en France (Paris, 1909); F. T. H. Fletcher, Montesquieu and English Politics (Philadelpliia, 1980, reprint of 1939 edn);]ohn Plamenatz, Man and Sociery (Hllrlow, Essex, 1963), vol. I, pp. 284-291; and C. P. Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke (Oxford, 1963). Emile Durkheim, Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners ofSociology (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1965); Raymond Aron, "Montesquieu," in Main Currents in Sociological Thought (New York, 1965), pp. II-56; Louis Althusser, Politics and History (London, 1972), pp. 12- I 09; and Henry ]. Merry, Montesquieu's System of Natural Government (W. Lafayette, Indiana, 1970) take Montesquieu as the beginning of modern sociology and history. For David Carrithers, in "Mon- tesquieu's Philosophy of History," Journal ofHistory ofIdeas (1986), pp. 61-80 the question is the way Montesquieu looked for underlying causes in history. Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests (Princeton, N.]., 1977), pp. 70-80 connects Montesquieu to the development of economic thought. Destutt de Tracey,A Commentary andReview ofMontesquieu 's "Spirit of the Laws", tr. Thomas]efferson (New York, 1969, reprinted from 181 I edn), Mark Waddicor, Montesquieu and the Philosophy ofNatural Law (The Hague, 1970), and Thomas L. Pangle,Montesquieu's Philo- sophy ofLiberalism (Chicago, 1974) have placed Montesquieu's book xxxii Bibliographical note within the tradition of natural law, or right, as they understand it. For an assessment see Bernard Manin, "Montesquieu et la politique moderne," Cahiers de Philosophie Politique, n. 2-3, and Michael A. Mosher, "The Particulars of a Universal Politics: Hegel's Adaptation ofMontesquieu's Typology," American Political Science Review (1984), pp. 179-188. Another approach explores the patterns of overlapping categories and concerns: Georges Benrekassa, Montesquieu (Paris, 1968); Anne M. Cobler, Montesquieu 's Comparative Politics and the Spirit ofAmerican Constitutionalism (Kansas, 1988); Suzanne Gearhart, The Open Boun- dary ofHistory and Fiction (Princeton, 1984); Bernard Groethuysen, Philosophie de la Revolution Franfaise precede de Montesquieu (Paris, 1956); Mark Hulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime (Berkeley, California, 1976); Catherine Larrere, "Les Typologies des gouvern- ments chez Montesquieu," in Etudes sur Ie XV/IIe Siecle (Clermont, 1979); Jacques Proust, L 'Objet et Ie texte, pour une poitique de la prose franfaise du XV/IIe siecle (Geneve, 1980); Paul Verniere, Montesquieu et ['esprit des lois ou la Raison impure (Paris, 1977). xxxiii Translators' preface The Spirit ofthe Laws offers a genial surface that carries the reader from one idea to the next; its array ofparadoxes, anecdotes, metaphors, witty phrases and sail/ies, which leads the reader deeper into the text, also amuses. As much as possible of this civilized surface with its light touches is retained here, permitting Montesquieyto help the reader even through the English translation. In l\;1((ntesquieu's apparent digressions the reader often finds echoes eli applications of general principles Montesquieu has already enunciated, sometimes several hundred pages earlier. With this in mind, we have, as often as practicable, chosen the language ofeach part ofthe translation in terms of the entire book rather than in terms of the more limited context of the paragraph or chapter. This results in a stabilized core of terminology, which conveys some of the resonance of the original text. Although in the Foreword to the Spin't ofthe Laws Montesquieu says that he has had to find new words or give new meanings to old ones, it is the conservatism of his vocabulary that is striking. Though he plays with the varied meanings ofvertu, "virtue," principe, "principle," esprit, "spirit," and constitution, "constitution," he does so against a back- ground of rigorously correct French usage. In Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, Sainte-Beuve observes that Montesquieu "excels in returning expressions to all their primitive strength, which permits his style to be both succinct and strong, and to appear simple." Accordingly, we have respected Mon- tesquieu's use of various distinctions, for instance between prononcer, "to pronounce," and statuer, "to enact," between peine, "penalty," and supplice, "punishment," between vil/e, "town," and cite, "city." xxxiv Translators' preface The greatest problems for the translators were presented by those French words whose broad meaning is not easily rendered into modem English. We have had to translate affaires as "business," "public business," "affairs," "public affairs," and even "suits" and "law suits;" but we have been able to maintain biens as "goods." We use "right" for droit, "law" for loi, and "money" for monnaie, all terms whose meanings have changed over time and have been the subject ofmuch discussion. The translators' notes are largely concerned with these problems. Montesquieu's discussion of feudal law raises the additional ques- tion of the difference between feudal French and feudal English institutions. Once the threshold of simple equivalents is passed with seigneur, "lord," comte, "county," and prince, "prince," modem English words tend to be inseparable from the English institutions to which they refer. Such words asfisc, cens, and police, which can be translated as "exchequer," "head-tax," and "administration," are rendered here by the more literal, if obsolete, English forms, "fisc," "census," and "police." The very obsoleteness of the terms will remind the readerthat these institutions and categories differ from the English ones. Paragraph divisions and virtually all the sentences are divided as they are in our French text. Where there are curiosities - for example, capital letters following a colon, or question-marks followed by a lower-case letter - we have followed the punctuation rather than the capitalization when possible. Within the sentences we have altered the punctuation to conform with English usage. We have kept as much of the structure of the sentences as is compatible with readable English and have used the first person when it appears in the text. The first edition of The Spirit of the Laws was published in 1748 under the supervision ofJacob Vernet in Geneva. In 1749 an edition was published with some minor revisions and a map. In 1750 another edition was published with some additional corrections and the division into six parts that had been left out of the first edition. A version with a few substantial revisions and a new Author's Foreword appeared in 1757 as a separate volume and in 1758 as a part of a complete works. This version was published by Richer under the directions of Mon- tesquieu's son from notes for a new edition left at Montesquieu's death in 1755 (Oeuvres, vol. 3, pp. 691-692). For the preparation of this translation, as there is no critical edition of the Spirit ofthe Laws, we used the text of the facsimile edition of the Oeuvres completes of 1758, Oeuvres completes de Montesquieu, ed. Andre Masson (Paris, Nagel, xxxv Translators' preface 1950-1955), vol. I. We have taken the liberty of returning the Invocation to the Muses, which appears in the Masson edition immedi- ately following the editor's introduction, to its original place at the opening of Book 20, and of reintroducing the division into six parts. The only other translation of the entire book, by Thomas Nugent, was first published in 1750. Although it was based on the first edition, some of the later changes were incorporated in later editions of the translation. We have profited from Nugent's grasp of eighteenth- century French and have been immensely grateful to have had a predecessor with whom we could argue. Montesquieu's text also contains some 2,000 footnotes. It has seemed appropriate to present his documentation in a format acces- sible to the modern reader. o.ur aim has been to make it possible for the specialist and non-specialist alike to evaluate Montesquieu's use of evidence. Montesquieu's teferences can be grouped under four general headings: (I) refererlces to the classical texts ofthe Greeks and Romans; (2) to Roman law; (3) to the laws, law codes and public documents of the barbarian tribes and the French monarchy, primarily in the early Middle Ages; (4) to the travel literature which he consulted for information about contemporary non-European cultures. For the first category, whereas Montesquieu refers to classical texts with book and chapter numbers, or with page numbers to editions which are no longer in print, we have used the present-day standard form. When a classical text may prove difficult to locate, the specific edition used is identified; otherwise we have relied on the Oxford, Loeb, or Teubner edition. For the second, Montesquieu refers to the laws in the Roman law codes by title. Although this is an efficient and elegant system of reference, it may put off a reader without Latin. We have identified, therefore, the name ofthe law-code and the book, title, law (imperial rescripts, extracts from the classical jurists), and paragraph numbers. For the third, while Montesquieu used the best editions available in his time for citations of the law codes of the barbarians, and of those of the Middle Ages, these are no longer in print. They have been superseded by texts prepared under the auspices of the Monumenta Gmnaniae historica. References are traced to this work since these volumes represent the best modern editions. Finally, in respect to the travel literature, as a number of these works have been republished in this century, we have used them whenever possible; otherwise, we have attempted to find the most recent printing. xxxvi Translators' preface All information appearing in brackets in the footnotes is that of the translators. We have preserved the original information of Mon- tesquieu's citations, adding full author and tide where needed. Although there are often incongruities between the numbers in Mon- tesquieu's citations and those in our own, these differences should not be interpreted as his errors. They reflect typographical mistakes, differences in editions, changes in the form of citation, etc. Factual errors and incorrect citations are indicated. These instances are rare. Montesquieu was scrupulous about his references. In earlier editions, many errors in the printing ofthe documentation resulted from the confusion, or transposition, of roman and arabic numerals. Mindful of this, and despite certain traditional forms of citation, we have used arabic numerals for all the numbers in the notes, except when roman numerals identifY specific pages, as in a preface. Our additions to the footnotes follow two basic forms. The first is for classical texts and for works for which there exists a specific standard form of citation. Each element of the citation - book number, chapter or tide number, sentence or line number - is set offby a period. The second form ofcitation is to a particular edition; these citations contain three elements, each set offby semicolons. The first element contains information such as book, part, or chapter number, and the tide of a specific section is given where it may be helpful in locating the information in a different edition. The second element contains volume and page number, separated by a comma, for the edition cited. The third and last element identifies the specific edition. A bibliography follows the translation. When the form of citation differs from that of the National Union Catalog, the form of the National Union Catalog main entry appears in parentheses. The author's name and the tide as they appear in the footnotes correspond to their form in the Bibliography. Montesquieu gallicized names and followed the convention ofciting all books by a French tide, whether or not the one he used was in French. It is often clear that Montesquieu in fact was referring to a Latin, and sometimes even to an English, original. Evidence cited by Montesquieu in Latin, Italian, and Old French has been translated; we indicate in brackets the language ofthe original when it is not French (e.g. [O.F.], [L.]). Translation of the Medieval Latin and Old French presents special problems because the meaning ofcertain phrases and words remains uncertain. Montesquieu appears xxxvii Translators' preface to recognize these difficulties, for he leaves certain phrases in the original in the footnote while translating the rest into French, or omits words and phrases when offering a translation in the text ofa quotation in a footnote. Since Montesquieu's time much substantial scholarship has grown up around these problems and frequently their interpreta- tion has remained controversial. In our translations we attempt to find a middle ground between intelligibility and the real opaqueness of certain of his citations. We wish to thank those who have helped us with this project. The work could not have been-done-without the assistance ofthe staffof the research collections of the Newberry Library, Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, the libraries of Northwestern University, and the libraries of Harvard University. Both the Bibliotheque Nationale and the British Library were helpful to visiting strangers. The ART F L Project at the University of Chicago has provided us with periodic reassurance as to our accuracy. We are especially grateful forthe support given Harold Stone by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Travel to Collections Program of the Division of Research Programs, for work on the project of completing the documentation. We are immensely grateful for the generosity of our friends in Hyde Park, at the University of Chicago, at Shimer College, and Colgate University. They have put their learning at our disposal. Thanks again to Mary Hynes-Berry, Joan Grimbert, and George Anastaplo. Keith Baker and Charles Grey have invited us to their seminars and workshops; they, their students, and colleagues have given us an education in eighteenth-century history. To Keith Baker we are particularly indebted for the encouragement and assistance that has brought this project to a successful conclusion. Our friends and families have been generous enough not to enquire too often when our project would be completed. We, of course, bear the responsibility for the final product. ANNE M. COHLER BASIA C. MILLER HAROLD S. STONE xxxviii Casso Dio CRE CSHB Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. FGrH FIRA I. L. Livy M. MGH Auct. Epp. LL. LL. Fonn. LL. Nat. SS. SS. Lang. SS. Merov. NA MignePG MignePL O.F. Pol. Vito Abbreviations Cassius Dio Cocceianus Capitularia regum Francorum (part ofMGH series) Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae Dionysius of Halicamassus Antiquitates Romanae F. Jacoby, Fragmenta der greichischen Historiker S. Riccobono, Fontes iuris RomaniAnteIustiniani Italian Latin Livy, Ab urbe condita Montesquieu Monumenta Germaniae historica Auaorum antiquissimiorum Epistolae Karolini aevi Leges (series in folio) Legum sectio V. Formulae Legum seaio I. Leges nationum Germanicarum Scnptores Scriptorum rerum Langobardicarum Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum Aulus Gellius, Noaes Atticae Migne, Patrologiae Cursus, series Graeca Migne, Patrologiae Cursus, series Latina Old French Aristotle, Politics Plutarch, Vitae parallelae For an explanation of the abbreviations used with Leges LangobartbJrum and Jean Baptiste Du Halde's Description de ['Empire de la Chine et de fa Tartarie Chinoise consult the entries in the bibliography. xxxix Author's foreword In order to understand the first four books ofthis work, one must note that what I call virtue in a republic is love of the homeland, that is, love of equality.· It is not a moral virtue or a Christian virtue; it is political virtue, and this is the spring that makes republican government move, as honor is the spring that makes monarchy move. Therefore, I have called love of the homeland and ofequality, political virtue. I have had new ideas; new words have had to be found or new meanings given to old ones. Those who have not understood this have made me say absurdities that would be outrageous in every country in the world, because in every country in the world morality is desired. 2. It should be observed that there is a very great difference between saying that a certain quality, modification ofthe soul, or virtue is not the spring that makes a government act and saying that it is not present in that government. If I were to say that a certain wheel, a certain gear, is not the spring that makes this watch move, would one conclude that it is not present in the watch? Far from excluding moral and Christian virtues, monarchy does not even exclude political virtue. In a word, honor is in the republic though political virtue is its spring; political virtue is in the monarchy though honor is its spring. Finally, the good man discussed in Book 3, chapter 5, is not the Christian good man, but the political good man, who has the political virtue I have mentioned. He is the man who loves the laws of his In the translators' notes, references such as 3.4 are to books and chapters in 171. Spirit ofthe LaIPS. "The Foreword was first printed in the 1757 edition. xli Author's foreword country and who acts from love of the laws ofhis country. I have put all these matters in a new light in the present edition by further specifYing the ideas, and in most places where I have used the word virtue, I have written political virtue. xlii Preface If, among the infinite number of things in this book, there is any that, contrary to my expectations· might give offense, at least there is none that has been put here with ill intent. By nature, I have not at all a censorious spirit. Plato thanked heaven that he was born in Socrates' time, and as for me, I am grateful that heaven had me born in the government in which I live and that it wanted me to obey those whom it had me love. I ask a favor that I fear will not be granted; it is that one not judge by a moment's reading the work of twenty years, that one approve or condemn the book as a whole and not some few sentences. Ifone wants to seek the design of the author, one can find it only in the design ofthe work. I began by examining men, and I believed that, amidst the infinite diversity of laws and mores, they were not led by their fancies alone. I have set down the principles, and I have seen particular cases conform to them as if by themselves, the histories of all nations being but their consequences, and each particular law connecting with another law or dependent on a more general one. When I turned to antiquity, I sought to capture its spirit in order not to consider as similar those cases with real differences or to overlook differences in those that appear similar. I did not draw my principles from my prejudices but from the nature of things. "In Montesquieu espoir usually implies the concreteness of "expect" more than the wishfulness of "hope," so we have translated it consistently as "expect" and "expectation" rather than "hope" in order to avoid interpreting the standing of thc hope Or expectation. xliii Preface Many ofthe truths will make themselves felt here only when one sees the chain connecting them with others. The more one reflects on the details, the more one will feel the certainty of the principles. As for the details, I have not given them all, for who could say everything without being tedious? The salliesb that seem to characterize present-day works will not be found here. As soon as matters are seen from a certain distance, such sallies vanish; they usually arise only because the mind attaches itself to a single point and forsakes all others. I do not write to censure that which is established in any country whatsoever. Each nation will find here the reasons for its maxims, and the consequence will naturally be drawn from them that changes can be proposed only by those who are born fortunate enough to fathom by a stroke of genius the whole of a state's constitution. It is not a matter of indifference that the people be enlightened. The prejudices of magistrates began as the prejudices of the nation. In a time of ignorance, one has no doubts even while doing the greatest evils; in an enlightened age, one trembles even while doing the greatest goods. One feels the old abuses and sees their correction, but one also sees the abuses of the correction itself. One lets an ill remain if one fears something worse; one lets a good remain ifone is in doubt about a better. One looks at the parts only in order to judge the whole; one examines all the causes in order to see the results. If I could make it so that everyone had new reasons for loving his duties, his prince, his homeland and his laws and that each could better feel his happiness in his own country, government, and position, I would consider myself the happiest of mortals. If I could make it so that those who command increased their knowledge of what they should prescribe and that those who obey found a new pleasure in obeying, I would consider myself the happiest of mortals. I would consider myself the happiest of mortals if I could make itso that men were able to cure themselves of their prejudices. Here I call prejudices not what makes one unaware of certain things but what makes one unaware of oneself. By seeking to instruct men one can practice the general virtue that includes love of all. Man, that flexible being who adapts himself in blraits sail/anls. These lraits are prominent features, as in architecture, not witticisms. xliv Preface society to the thoughts and impressions ofothers, is equally capable of knowing his own nature when it is shown to him, and oflosing even the feeling of it when it is concealed from him. Many times I began this work and many times abandoned it; a thousand times I cast to the winds the pages I had written; I every day I felt my paternal hands drop;2 I followed my object without forming a design; I knew neither rules nor exceptions; I found the truth only to lose it. But when I discovered my principles, all that I had sought came to me, and in the course of twenty years, I saw my work begin, grow, move ahead, and end. Ifthis work meets with success, I shall owe much ofit to the majesty of my subject; still, I do not believe that I have totally lacked genius. When I have seen what so many great men in France, England, and Germany have written before me, I have been filled with wonder, but I have not lost courage. "And I too am a painter,"3 have I said with Correggio. '''A sport to the winds" IL.] [VergiJ,Aeneid 6.75]. 2"Twice the paternal hand had fallen" [L.] [Vergil,Aeneid6.33]. 3"And I too am a painter" [I.]. [An apocryphal remark attributed to Correggio on seeing, in ISIS, Raphael's St. Cecilia; the story was first published by Sebastiano Resta, a seventeenth-century Italian writer on art.] xlv SClPPLZMZNTPOUR LA CART): DU I.IVRI. utitule DR LESPRIT Dl!:SLoIx ~~~~~~~:~~~A.~~ Lhu' tk L-rmn,- ntidJIV. riJr 1'''''''Jt''Ju,r,.'«$f;.~. Z7,s.,·· .. . •~ o r£. ti":,,--, "in-z.t:, .... • - jJ" Jo ...~-==-.,,=-~F=--==--=2:;"--==--==--/==--==--=3--==S~U~d==t Figure I xlvi xlvii Part 1 BOOKI On laws in general CHAPTER I On laws in their relation with the various beings Laws, taken in the broadest meaning, are the necessary relations deriving from the nature of things; and in this sense, all beings have their laws: the divinityl has its laws, the material world has its laws, the intelligences superior to man have their laws, the beasts have their laws, man has his laws. Those who have said that a blindfate has produced all the effects that we see in the world have said a great absurdity; for what greater absurdity is there than a blind fate that could have produced intelligent beings? There is, then, a primitivea reason; and laws are both the relations that exist between it and the different beings, and the relations of these various beings to each other. God is related to the universe, as creator and preserver; the laws according to which he created are those according to which he preserves; he acts according to these rules because he knows them; he knows them because he made them; he made them because they are related to his wisdomb and his power. As we see that the world, formed by the motion ofmatter and devoid ofintelligence, still continues to exist, its motions must have invariable laws; and, if one could imagine another world than this, it would have consistent' rules or it would be destroyed. 1"The law," Plutarch says in [Moralia] Adprincipem ineruditum [78oc], "is the queen of all, mortal and immortal." [Plutarch is quoting Pindar, fragment 169 (151).] 'We have rendered Montesquieu's primitive as "primitive," thus retaining the distinc- tion between that term and premier, "first," which is used repeatedly in 1.2. bWe have translated sage and its various forms with "wise" and its various forms. The meaning is generally prudence, calm, sobriety. 'Montesquieu uses constant, constamment, and constance to refer both to a fixed rule and 3 Part I Thus creation, which appears to be an arbitrary act, presupposes rules as invariable as the fate claimed by atheists. It would be absurd to say that the creator, without these rules, could govern the world, since the world would not continue to exist without them. These rules are a consistently established relation. Between one moving body and another moving body, it is in accord with relations of mass and velocity that all motions are received, increased, diminished, or lost; every diversity is unifimnity, every change is consistency.d Particular intelligent beings can have laws that they have made, but they also have some that they have not made. Before there were intelligent beings, they were possible; therefore, they had possible relations and consequently possible laws. Before laws were made, there were possible relations of justice.' To say that there is nothing just or unjust but what positive laws ordain or prohibit is to say that before a circle was drawn, all its radii were not equal. Therefore, one must admit that there are relations of fairness!prior to the positive law that establishes them, so that, for example, assuming that there were societies of men, it would be just to conform to their laws; so that, if there were intelligent beings that had received some kindness from another being, they ought to be grateful for it;K so that, if one intelligent being had created another intelligent being, the created one ought to remain in its original dependency; so that one intelligent being who has done harm to another intelligent being deserves the same harm in return, and so forth. But the intelligent world is far from being as well governed as the physical world. For, though the intelligent world also has laws that are invariable by their nature, unlike the physical world, it does not follow its laws consistently. The reason for this is that particular intelligent beings are limited by their nature and are consequently subject to error; furthermore, it is in their nature to act by themselves. Therefore, they to multiple actions that conform to the rule. We have chosen to translate them by "consistent" and "consistency," which have both of these implications. dHere translating constance as "consistency" conveys the meaning ofchanging accord- ing to a rule, as "constancy" with its static implication would not. See note b, above. 'Here Montesquieu takes advantage ofthe range ofmeaning ofthe French}uste, which includes both the notion of"correct" and that of"just." It leads him to the arithmetic notion of justice in the next paragraph. fEquiti is translated throughout as "fairness," because it implies a much wider sphere than the English term "equity" with its almost exclusively legal implications. Here Montesquieu's equite reminds the reader of the egal, "equal," at the end of the preceding sentence and of the arithmetic relation. gavoir de la reconnais,ance, See 31.33 (note', bk. 3 I). 4 On laws in general do not consistently follow their primitive laws or even always follow the laws they give themselves. It is not known whether beasts are governed by the general laws of motion or by a movement particular to themselves. Be that as it may, they do not have a more intimate relation with godh than the rest of the material world has, and feeling is useful to them only in their relation to one another, either with other particular beings, or with themselves/ By the attraction ofpleasure they preserve their particular being; by the same attraction they preserve their species. They have natural laws because they are united by feeling; they have no positive laws because they are not united by knowledge. Still, they do not invariably follow their naturallawsj plants, in which we observe neither knowledge nor feeling, better follow their natural laws. Beasts do not have the supreme advantages
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